Different Styles, Same End

Through Instagram, I can challenge others
to post their favorite scriptures and spread
the gospel.  These are all the people I
challenged!

Both Socrates and Elder Bednar present to their respective audiences the dangers of communication in deliberative addresses.  The styles of Elder Bednar and Socrates are extremely different but actually lead to the same end: their audience cannot refute them.

I loved the #BecauseofHim movement and
 tweeted and retweeted about it often.

Socrates spoke directly to a very few people: Gorgias, Callicles, and Polus.  Because of this, there is a “back-and-forth” to the messages that Socrates gives.  People can refute him and do so constantly.   In contrast Elder Bednar’s audience is the entire world.  His message is that we can spread the gospel through social media in huge ways, so he obviously thinks that his own message, recorded on video for everyone to see later and for thousands of people to actually witness, will have a world-wide audience.  Because of this audience, there is no “give-and-take.”  He simply lays out his argument so no one can refute him to his face, but still might disagree with him.

I also love the hashtag #LDSconf.  It
helps create discussion with my
non-member friends.

Because the audiences are different, the persuasive appeals of ethos and pathos between Socrates and Elder Bednar differ.  Socrates increases his own ethos and pathos by shaming others.  He proves Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles wrong and contradictory in order to make himself look like the one for whom to turn for wisdom and uses outside references sparingly.  He appeals to emotion by making others feel shame for what they said.  The effect of this shaming creates a situation where no one can refute Socrates.  Elder Bednar, in contrast, showed clips of worthy prophets and apostles to increase his own ethos by association and used the motivating word of “exhort” to motivate people to action, which creates a spirit of good-will toward Bednar where one truly believes his argument enough to not refute him.  Therefore, both Bednar and Socrates create the same inability in their audience for refutation but through different means. 

Unlike my social media, Socrates could
only speak to a few people at a time.
That's why his approach to his audience is
different and much less pleasing than Bednar's.